


She Will Be Loved

by debwalsh



Series: Take Up Your Shield and Follow Me [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, F/M, Goodbyes, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-HYDRA Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 15:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4025311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally, another chapter in my series, <b>Take Up Your Shield and Follow Me</b>.  In this chapter, Steve faces the reality that he needs to take action in order to bring Bucky home, and he's going to have to leave Peggy to do that.  It's never easy saying goodbye to one love to search for another, and it's never easy letting go of one's dreams.  Before he says goodbye, he plans one last, magical evening with his best girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Will Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it's been a year since I posted the first chunk of this series (not the first chapter, but the first bit). This story is never far from my thoughts, but some of my other works have distracted me, like **On the Air** (Steve as the first bisexual _Bachelor_!), **I, Barnes** (Bucky as Phantom of the Tower!), and **It Takes a Village** (Steve and Bucky explore adoption). I've got bunches of other stories I want to write, and never enough time to tackle them all! Please stick with me while I work through all my ideas. There's so much more to come!

_I drove for miles and miles and wound up_  
_At your door_  
_I've had you so many times but somehow I want more_  


It was all happening so fast now that SHIELD had collapsed around him. A couple of days in the hospital, and then Natasha had slipped away after releasing her bombshells and her appearance on the Hill, and Fury was in the wind. There’d been a funeral, and he’d been unable to attend – otherwise engaged, hooked up to monitors and IV drips. But he’d said his farewell to Fury at the graveside as the master spy had slipped off the grid and off toward Europe and Hydra.

They’d discussed going after Bucky after Natasha had handed him that file. He’d only glanced at it, though, not quite ready to have his heart pulled out of his chest and shredded by the horrors his best friend had endured for 70 years. Horrors that, despite everything he knew to the contrary, he somehow felt he could have prevented. If he’d reached a little further. If he’d never included Bucky in the Howling Commandos. If he’d torn up Bucky’s draft notice. So many decisions and crossroads he would have changed if he’d been able. But the simple fact remained … he couldn’t.

He could search the world over, and if Bucky didn‘t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. Steve knew that in his gut, in his DNA. As sure as he knew the best thing he could do for Bucky would be to bring Hydra down. And for that, he needed more than just his own self. He needed infrastructure, a team.

And that’s what Tony had offered. A place in the Tower, resources, intel. He wasn’t too proud to accept an offer of real value. It wasn’t that he’d be leaving Bucky waiting. He was ensuring that Bucky would be safe. If Hydra didn’t exist, there was no way he could be its Fist.

It was a simple fact. Hydra had to be destroyed, definitively, with extreme prejudice and finality. Tony offered him a way to make that happen sooner rather than later.

&&&

_Tap on my window, knock on my door, I_  
_Want to make you feel beautiful_  
_I know I tend to get so insecure_  
_It doesn't matter anymore_  


Sam had quietly gone back to the VA, but remained tense and watchful, expecting something more to happen. He knew, since on his discharge he’d been sleeping on Sam’s couch, unwilling to go back to his shattered apartment with its bloodstains and carnage. Sam might try to act nonchalant about having a 95-year old American icon crashing on his couch, but he was wary, and most definitely worried. It’s not every day you see the world shake itself apart in front of your eyes.

And Sam was waiting for Steve to make a move, to start the hunt for the Winter Soldier. Sam didn’t know about Tony Stark’s phone call.

The wings were gone, but Steve had certainly taken note of the corporate emblem on the power pack – if he needed it, he had no doubt he could convince Stark to fork over another unit. In fact, he was banking on it. Sam was uniquely qualified to fly it, and he just might be needed. Scratch that – he needed Sam on his six. Real friends were few and far between, especially now. And Sam knew what to expect from Bucky, from the Winter Soldier. That kind of battle experience would be invaluable.

So Steve planned to get Sam his wings back. And he was sure that Tony would come through. Provided Tony wasn’t jealous about sharing airspace. He could be a dickhead about things like that.

Steve smiled to himself. How surprised his friends would be that not only did he know the word, he could use it in a sentence. Just because he believed in the power of manners, it didn’t mean he didn’t have a vocabulary in the quiet recesses of his mind …

For example, the whole of Washington was FUBAR. They’d taken out a heck of a lot of high-ranking people in the Hydra rout, including that creepy Senator Stern and the supposedly saintly Alexander Pierce. There were a lot of ex-SHIELD agents looking dazed and confused, undergoing interrogations as the world convulsed and contorted in an attempt to grasp what had happened. There were people he’d known, trusted, even liked, who’d revealed themselves as Hydra, and many of them had disappeared, leaving the innocent to pick up the pieces. People were looking for someone to blame, someone to punish for the greatest security breach in living history. In human history. They needed to know who the bad guys were so they could go back to feeling safe. 

He knew why it had happened. Too many secrets, not enough respect for what they were fighting for. Hell, he doubted any of them knew what they were fighting for, other than greed, profits, and hubris. Too much politics and not enough ideals. They couldn’t see the rise of Hydra in their own ranks because they’d lost the point of it all. At SHIELD’s highest levels, they’d lost sight of why SHIELD existed at all – to protect, not to judge. To fight for what’s right, not decide who lived or died. In a way, SHIELD didn’t see Hydra’s rise because SHIELD had become too much like Hydra.

Fury seemed to have grasped the error, and had rededicated himself to routing out the disease. But Steve wondered if Nick really understood that it was Fury’s own policies that had let the disease thrive, practically out in the open. And now it was, all in the open. To the world, SHIELD was a terrorist organization, and anyone connected to it was suspect. Even he had been interrogated while in the hospital recovering from his battle with the Winter Soldier, with Bucky. Ultimately, they’d had to agree with the news coverage, that he hadn’t been part of the problem. But he’d been careful in his answers to throw the authorities off any scent of Bucky. He knew he was still out there, knew he still lived. Felt he was somewhere close. The thought made his chest ache, his lungs burn like the old days when asthma ruled his life. He wanted desperately to find Bucky, but he had a feeling that he wouldn’t, not until Bucky was ready to be found.

In the meantime, there was damage control to be done. The government had seized SHIELD’s accounts to pay for the clean-up to Washington, DC. The damage from the helicarriers and the Hydra uprising was estimated to be in the billions. He had a hard time wrapping his head around a number that big. He was just a poor kid from an improverished Brooklyn neighborhood who’d grown up in the shadow of the worst depression the country had ever known, after all. Mountains of money still made him uncomfortable.

And boy was he surprised to find that’s exactly what he had. Turned out he’d been collecting back pay – and earning interest – since 1944. He had Peggy and Colonel Phillips to thank for that. Probably mostly Peggy. 

Always Peggy. 

And he wouldn’t be surprised if Howard hadn’t somehow funded it. He’d learned they’d fought to keep him listed as MIA rather than KIA, insisted the Army keep on issuing pay vouchers to an account Steve had set-up with Bucky years ago. And the deposits kept on coming, and the interest kept on compounding, and the totals kept on rising.

A sad smile touched his lips at the memory. All this in what had been Bucky’s and his “future account,” the account they’d deposited change and a buck or two every time they scrounged it together, the account that was going to someday pay for a grand adventure. 

_“Just think of it, Steve! We could go somewhere it was warm all year round, somewhere where the air don’t hurt ya. We could buy ourselves a piece a’ heaven someday.”_

If he just closed his eyes, he could hear Bucky planning their future, painting the possibilities in the air with calloused hands and bright eyes. He wiped a knuckle across his cheekbone and shook his head. 

So the paychecks had kept on coming, first from the Army through the SSR, and then through SHIELD, and the money kept piling up, earning interest. The bank had changed an untold number of times, but the checks kept getting deposited, and the money pile kept on growing.

Suddenly, it occurred to him he didn’t know how the checks had kept getting deposited. They hadn’t had a thing like “direct deposit” back during the war. Someone would have had to go to the bank and hand the check to a teller. And then he remembered Rebecca, Bucky’s sister. He’d put her down as a backup contact on the forms he’d signed with Dr. Erskine since Bucky was already out of the country. No doubt they’d sent the checks to Rebecca, and she’d dutifully deposited them. Knowing her, she could have been starving, and she’d still deposit his checks without looking at them. Bucky came from a scrupulously honest family, everyone other than Bucky. He’d managed all the scoundrel with some to spare, but at least he’d always been a charming scoundrel. Except … no, Steve’s mind shied away from the darker memories, kept them locked away where they couldn’t hurt him.

It had been a surprise to him when the bank had contacted him to discuss his account. Coming out of the ice, he hadn’t thought about such things. By the time they finished totaling the numbers, his windfall looked bigger than the national debt. He might actually be in Tony Stark’s league – the bank had tossed out words like billionaire, top 1%, and why not buy a small country, maybe a chain of islands? He’d considered for a moment refusing the money, and then he thought about what he could do with it. Not live in luxury, but the _good_ he could do. 

He wasn’t convinced any longer that those in power had the people’s business in mind. He’d come to realize that the individuals running the show weren’t the ones the people had elected, instead a shadow government that had grown up like a cancer in their democracy, and one that felt answerable to no one but their own greed, their own sense of entitlement. 

Something had to be done to bring this country back to its core values. And he wasn’t thinking about all that noise on TV, the talking heads and the rude people on both ends of the political spectrum telling people how to live their lives and dictate who they could marry. That wasn’t the American way he knew. No, he was thinking about people working together, building the country up, not tearing it down. Looking out for each other, and looking toward a shared future. He knew there were people out there who still held the values of community and hard work in their hearts, even if their elected officials didn’t, even if those who’d awarded themselves power didn’t. 

And again, with SHIELD out of the picture, and Hydra a real threat, anything he used to fight back he was going to have to fund himself, or borrow from Tony. He liked Tony well enough, but the idea of being in debt to the guy just chafed. He’d rather keep it on a level playing field.

So yes, he was glad he’d accepted the payday, glad he’d invested the money in American businesses, American jobs. He was very specific to his financial advisor that all funds had to remain in the US, used in US manufacturing, replenishing US communities. Nothing that was going to hurt the environment further, either. And no offshore accounting. He was proud to pay his taxes; it was the patriotic thing to do.

Finances were sorted. And for now, he had clean-up of his own to do. Pepper Potts had called last night, invited him to New York to stay at Stark Tower while they all figured out the next steps with Hydra. He’d looked around Washington, and realized there really was nothing for him here anymore. His apartment had been trashed, and while he could afford to repair the damage, he didn’t feel like there was anything anchoring him to the city. 

Sam might be safer if he didn’t have a 95-year old cultural icon crashing on his couch.

He’d miss Peggy, but her condition was such she wouldn’t notice if he didn’t come to visit her every day. Then again, almost every visit was like the first for her, full of joy and wonder. It broke his heart every time. He wouldn’t stay away long, but his heart could use a little time to heal. It had been taking a beating lately.

And it would be good to do something, feel like he was taking this war on the offensive. Pepper might be a gracious hostess, but he was sure Tony had something in the works that would help in the coming battle. And this was a war he planned to win, decisively, once and for all.

&&&

_It's not always rainbows and butterflies_  
_It's compromise that moves us along yeah_  
_My heart is full, and my door's always open_  
_You can come anytime you want yeah_  


“No, seriously?” Sam asked as he resettled the tape on his knuckles and positioned himself to take another swing at the bag. They were working out in the gym that Steve used, and Sam was working the bag while Steve watched. Steve’d already put in a couple of hours and just wanted a break.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed from his vantage point leaning against the back of his chair, hands clasped on the upper rim of the chair back. “What’s keeping me here?”

Sam gave him an “are you kidding?” glare over his shoulder, grinned , and turned back to the bag. “What, you don’t like my couch?” Steve lifted one shoulder a shrug. Sam blew him a raspberry, and added more soberly, “What about him, Bucky? I thought we were going after him.”

“We will. But we’ve got to be better prepared. We gotta be smarter about this. Right now, we got nothing. Tony can help us with intelligence, resources. We need a team if we’re gonna take out Hydra.”

“I get that. Are you sure? You sure you don’t want to go after Barnes right now?”

“I want that more than anything, Sam. But fact is, as long as Hydra’s out there, he’s at risk. And frankly, we don’t know who we can trust. So, yeah. New York and Stark Tower. Damn, that building is ugly.”

Sam grinned, glanced at the bag and shook his head. He started unwrapping the tape as he came over to join Steve. “What about the girl of your dreams? What’s her name – Peggy?”

Steve breathed deep through his nose, and shrugged fully this time, frowning at the palms of his hands as he fidgeted. “I hate the idea of leaving Peggy, but honestly, it’s not like she’s really gonna notice. If I thought she would … if I thought she could get better … but she won’t. I gotta make the most of the time I spend with her. Part of me feels like I need to take every moment with her while I still have the chance, but … part of me doesn’t want to be here to watch, not at the end,” he added, tilting his head to do just that, watch, as Sam bent down to pick up his duffle.

“Yeah, I get that.” Sam pivoted to look at him, caught the expression, and grinned. “Are you … are you checkin’ me out?”

“No, I, uh … oh God. Yes. Sorry. That was rude of me,” he admitted with a grimace.

“You been doing that the whole time you been staying with me?”

Steve shook his head vehemently. “No, I promise. Sorry, just a lapse …”

“And here I thought you were with Natasha. Well, that’s good news. For me. ‘Cos she is _so_ in my future. You know that, right? Huh?” 

Steve has no choice but to laugh at Sam’s earnest fascination with Natasha Romanoff. “Sure, Sam. Everybody’s gotta have a dream. Might as well dream big.”

“Damn straight, son. So Captain America bats for the other team, huh?”

“Steve Rogers is, um – well,” Steve ducks his head, blushing, and scrubs his hand over his nose and mouth. “Let’s just say that I am … open to possibilities.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Wow. Wow, Steve. I really _am_ honored. You sure Nat doesn’t know?

“No, hell, no. She keeps trying to set me up with women from the office. It’s a game for her. And the office is gone now. But imagine what she could do if she thought she could pull from both genders.” Steve shook his head, staring down at his hands. “I’ve been so careful, had to be so careful back then. I know that things are different now, but I don’t know why now, why I’m telling you, I –“

“Everybody needs a friend, Steve. And you and me? We’ve just been through a war together. You nearly died. Man comes up hard against who he is in those situations. Maybe you just need to be Steve for a while. Be you. Be bi-sexual you, whatever.”

Steve scoffed quietly at that. “Be me. I don’t know who that is. Once, I saw things clearly. But now … now I honestly don’t know who I am or where I fit.”

“Since Bucky came back –“

“Since the ice. Since even before then. Since before … before this,” he gestured toward himself. “When I was skinny and sickly, I knew who I was. My place in the world was clear. At least … well, I thought it was. But since the serum, I don’t know. Even the language has changed.”

“Like bi-sexual, that sort of thing?

“We didn’t have that term when I was younger. If you liked men at all, you were just queer. It was illegal most places. There was a lot of bigotry. Lot of hatred. Heck, back in my day, I’d’ve gotten beaten up for being friends with you just because of your skin color. Add to that queer, and I’d’ve been dead. Now most places, people don’t even notice. There’s a lot wrong with this world today, but there’s a lot right with it, too.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, abandoning the bag at last, and started unwinding the tape protecting his knuckles. “There’s a lot of injustice still in the world, but it’s hard for a lot of people to realize it was a hell of a lot worse at one time. But trust me, enough people still notice that this war ain’t done yet. Gay-bashing and hate crimes are still with us. Some places you could still get beaten to death for being gay, and there are still places people’d be happy to see me swing ‘cos of my skin. But yeah, in some ways It’s better – more people see hate crimes for what they are, more people don’t accept them for being ‘just how it is’.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed thoughtfully, lowering his chin to rest on his fist on the back of his chair. “But we can’t be complacent about it. That’s how Hydra brought down SHIELD. They thought the war was long over.”

“And that’s why you’re going to New York. To fight.”

“To regroup. Yeah, to see what we can figure out. Plan, put together a team, design an attack strategy. And take the fight to them. To do that, I need resources. But I was thinking … Stark designed your wings, didn’t he?”

Sam groaned. “Oh, don’t remind me, man! I keep waiting for the bill to arrive for that jet pack – I keep waiting for the MPs to show up at my door.”

“Yeah, about that … I know the guy who made them, right? How about we see about getting you a new set of wings? You could come to New York with me.”

“Are you hitting on me, Rogers?”

“Would you be interested if I was?”

Sam’s eyes widened and his mouth worked, fishlike. “I, uh –“

“I’ve seen the way you look at Natasha,” Steve clarified with a grin. “She’s taken, you know.”

“But not by you,” Sam stated and Steve confirmed with a shake of his head. “Then I don’t know nothin’ ‘til I see it with my own two eyes. Even then, I may choose not to believe it. Some things are worth fightin’ for, y’know? I gotta feeling Natasha’s one of ‘em. That woman is fine, even if she knows a kazillion way to kill me and leave no evidence. Guy’s gotta have hope to live, you know.”

Steven bit his bottom lip and nodded. “Yeah, I know,” he agreed sadly, his expression wistful. “But no, Not hitting on you. Just wanted to see you squirm.” He grinned his all-American boy grin, and Sam returned the favor. 

“Funny. You’re a real funny guy, Rogers,” he added, whacking Steve’s knee with his tapes. “So seriously, you really want company on this trek to the Big Apple?”

“What, are _you_ hitting on _me_?”

“Nah. Figured you get my wings back, I’m gonna owe you. And I wouldn’t mind a shot at some payback. You breaking down your apartment?” Steve nodded. “Then I guess I’m on moving detail.” Steve smiled. “But there better be beer. And pizza.”

“Deal,” Steve chuckled with a warm grin, then grew serious. “But, there is something else I really could use your help with …”

“If it involves crazy eyes and a metal arm, I don’t know, Steve –“

Steve felt himself go cold at the mention of Bucky. It was, he had to admit to himself, his greatest worry, that Bucky might come looking for him and he’d be gone. Even more than Peggy could slip away while he was in New York. But Bucky could also be halfway around the world right now, even though Steve doubted it. The best thing Steve could do to bring Bucky home would be to dismantle the organization that had abused him, remade him, took away his soul. Destroy Hydra, and there was no further threat to Bucky. The fact that the world would be safer was simply a bonus.

Sam was looking expectantly at Steve as he shook his head slightly to clear the grim thoughts of Hydra and what Bucky must have gone through over the past 70 years. What he must be experiencing now. “Steve? What is it?”

Steve fished out his iPhone and handed it to Sam. “Show me how to make this thing play music.”

Sam barked a laugh and shook his head, chuckling. “Is that all? Damn, son, you had me thinking … hell, I don’t know what I was thinking. Okay, what kind of music you want?”

&&&

_I don't mind spendin' everyday_  
_Out on your corner in the pourin' rain oh_  
_Look for the girl with the broken smile_  
_Ask her if she wants to stay awhile_  
_And she will be loved …_  


Half on the bed, half supporting his weight with one foot on the floor, Steve settled in next to Peggy, his arm curled under her frail shoulders, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He rested her cheek against her soft white hair, and held her hand with his free hand. In the background, Glenn Miller’s _Moonlight Serenade_ played softly on his iPhone, a trick that Sam had taught him only hours before. They’d built a whole playlist of music from Steve’s time. Beyond the window of her nursing home room, the lights of Washington, DC twinkled on as dusk fell on the city, and with it, an apparent calm.

Inside the room, Steve had turned the lights down, placing battery-operated candles around the room to give them a soft, comforting light. He liked the idea of these artificial candles – no fear of setting anything on fire! But with the dimmed lights, flickering candles, and soft music, he settled into the mood he’d sought to create, tightened his hold around her shoulders, and sighed into an embrace of his best girl.

Peggy hummed softly, her eyes closed and her lips curled in a sweet smile as her other hand traced the music in the air in time with the orchestra.

“This is our song,” Steve said softly. “This is the song we danced to, our first dance.”

“Oh?” she asked with a throaty chuckle. He felt a bolt of fire dance up his spine, and he closed his eyes to revel in the pleasure of it. “In your dreams.”

“In my dreams, yeah,” he agreed, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I do dream of it, oh, every night, Peg. I wish I’d been there. I wish we’d danced until the sun came up. I’d’ve never let you go. If only we’d danced.”

“I went, you know,” she told him sadly. “I hoped that maybe, just maybe, you’d surprise us all. You’d done it so many times before. I waited all evening. Then I went home. I knew it was true, then. You’d never have stood me up if you’d been able to be there.” He’d heard the story before. She’d told it to him more than once, her voice laced with sadness for the future they’d lost. Sometimes tears would trickle down her face, her face that had lived a lifetime, moved on without him. Her memory failed her more and more, and she’d told him the story at nearly every visit for the past month. Tonight he wanted to tell a new story, and hoped that maybe, just maybe, she’d remember, and it would make her smile when she thought of him when he was gone from Washington.

“I know, Peg. But I’d like to think that in another world, I made it back, I met you there, and we danced.”

“I like this story. Tell me more.” 

“Hmmm,” he hummed against her cheek, smiling into the darkness. “The joint was dimly lit, those little candles in glasses or jars, flickering on the tables. White table cloths. Dames in fancy dresses, real nylons, high heels. Guys in suits with ties, polished shoes. A tux or two, maybe. Waiters in white jackets, napkins over their arms, just like in the movies. A real orchestra, with a bandleaders and a couple of singers, too. And when I walk in, everyone just disappears because there you are, waiting for me. You’re a knockout in your little red dress, and me, I’m in dress uniform. You always liked me in uniform.”

“I did, yes. You cut a dashing figure, Captain Rogers. I liked you in fatigues, too. I’d’ve liked you in nothing at all,” she adds in a devilish whisper, and Steven blushed into the darkness. “You’re a good man, Steve,” she answered, nestling her head a little more comfortably in the hollow of his shoulder.

“If you say so, ma’am. Where was I? Oh yeah, The orchestra starts to play Glenn Miller, _Moonlight Serenade_ , and you smile at me, a smile just for me, no one else. I walk up to you and bow –“

“Bow? How utterly old-fashioned, Captain Rogers! I would have liked that, a lovely young man bowing over my hand.”

“I don’t know about any lovely young men, but I’d’ve done it,” he told her earnestly, earning another throaty chuckle. “Bowed, sure, over your hand, taken it in mine, and led you out to the dance floor. In my imagination, I don’t step on your toes once, and for once, I even know how to lead.”

“We’d have floated on air,” Peggy agreed dreamily.

“Mmmm,” Steve agreed. “The band played until we couldn’t dance any more, and then I walked you home.”

“Surely the evening didn’t end there,” she protested mischievously.

“Oh, no,” he sighed. “You invited me in for a nightcap. Which for me could be anything, since nothing’ll make me drunk. But we kissed. And that made my head spin. And then we kissed some more. And we spent the whole night kissing, and when the sun came up, I asked you to marry me.”

“And I said yes,” she whispered softly, turning her head so her lips just barely brushed his. The sizzle that zipped along his nerve endings only reminded him more of what they’d lost – if at 95, Peggy could still turn him on, she’d have been a real firecracker back when they’d both been young. He kissed her back, chastely, and felt her lips smile against his.

“And you said yes,” he repeated, lifting her hand, soft and warm and lined with age, to his lips, closed his eyes, and kissed it softly. Her fingers curled around his, and he smiled into the candlelit darkness. “And we had the biggest wedding, St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. You were beautiful. All lace and silk and pearls – your dress was studded in pearls. No one had ever seen a bride as beautiful as Peggy Carter.” 

“New York, not Westminster? Ah, I see I was a war bride, then.”

“New York’s where we met,” Steve protested softly. “I wanted to get married where we met.”

“Ah, that’s all right then. Well, if we didn’t get married in England, Colonel Morris gave me away,” she added, warming to the game. “Underneath it all, he was an old softie. He cried,” she added.

“And, and … Bucky was my best man. He threw me a hell of a bachelor’s party, the Howling Commandos about broke Brooklyn. It was swell. But all I cared about was the day itself, seeing you wait for me by the priest. You glowed like an angel. It was perfect. My best friend and my best girl. You were perfect.”

“Mmmm,” she answered. “Surely that’s not all that happened on our wedding day,” she prompted saucily.

“No, ma’am,” Steve replied, taking up the narrative again. “Everyone was there, the reception was huge. And there was lots of laughter and dancing. We danced. I held you in my arms, and we danced.”

“Chester would have taken the father-daughter dance. That would have been amusing,” she guessed.

“I guess it would be,” Steve agreed , grinning. “And then … and then we said our goodbyes, and went to our suite, Mr. and Mrs. Steven Grant Rogers. And we kissed some more.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” she sighed softly, her eyes closed, a small smile curving her lips.

He could tell from the way she was relaxing against him that she was drifting to sleep. Carefully, he slid his arm out from under her shoulders, shifted off the bed into the chair by her side, all the time continuing to hold her hand. She didn’t stir, and he continued to weave his tale of the life they’d never had. “We went on our honeymoon, Niagara Falls like all the other honeymooners. And when we came home, I got a job as a book illustrator, no, I went to work at the _Saturday Evening Post_ with Norman Rockwell. And we got a house out in White Plains, where you were elected mayor. And Bucky, Bucky got a good job, too, met a nice girl, got married and settled down right next door. Our kids grew up together. Our daughter became the first woman president of the United States. She was married to Buck’s oldest son, and they were good to each other. We grew old together. We were never apart, Peg. We had our whole lives together, you and me and Bucky, and we were happy.” He buried his face against her hand clutched in his, tears flowing freely. Sobs surged up and nearly choked him, rocking him to his core as he mourned the future he’d never had, the woman he’d loved and lost, and the best friend who seemed forever lost to him.

A small hand rested on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “But that’s not the way it happened.”

“It’s the way it should have happened!” Steve responded hotly, lifting his tear-stained face to look up in the concerned face of his neighbor Kate – no, _SHIELD_ agent Sharon something. He’d known her as Kate Bishop, friendly neighbor, a nurse. He grimaced, feeling suddenly violated. This moment had been his and Peggy’s, his tears an offering to his lost love, and this … this two-faced _bitch_ had intruded into his grief. “Why are you here?” he snarled. Her eyes widened with fright – sure, Captain America never lost his temper, he wasn’t really human after all. After all he’d seen in the past month, in the past three years since coming out of the ice, Steve was beginning to think he was one of the last humans on earth. “Still keeping tabs on me? Fury’s gone, mission’s over,” he spat, standing and for once in his life, using his greater size as threat.

She pursed her lips, put her fists on her hips, and stared up at him with determination and steel in her eyes. He did a double-take, but didn’t back down.

“So’s SHIELD, so officially, my mission is over, yeah. But no. Not here for you, _Captain Rogers_ ,” she informed him, treating his title with respect, and that counted for something in his book, especially where he’d been downright rude to her. Too many people treated his captaincy as a circus name, not a title he’d earned. “I’m here for _her_ ,” she added, smiling fondly, and pointing to the sleeping old woman, and touched Peggy’s smooth forehead affectionately. Then, taking in the candles flickering on surfaces around the room, she looked up at him with a softer expression. “You really loved her, didn’t you?”

Steve felt something simultaneously relax and tighten in his gut, and dragged the heel of his hand over his eyes, scrubbing away the tears that still trailed down his cheeks. He twisted to look down at her again, trace her cheek gently with his finger. “Love. I _love_ her. For her it’s been 70 years. For me, not even three. I’ll always love her. I’m grateful I’ve had a second chance to tell her.”

“Even if she might not remember it the next time she sees you.”

“So I get to tell her again. I keep getting second chances. I’m a lucky guy,” he told her without bitterness – much – as he slid back into his place at Peggy’s side, drawing her small, weathered hand into his large, youthful one. “They don’t let just anyone in to see her. So what’s your connection to Peggy?”  
  


“I’m a lucky girl,” Sharon answered with a smile. “That’s my grandmother you’re making goo-goo eyes at. Sharon Carter,” she added, extending her hand to him. He took it tentatively, eyes wide as he looked up at her.

“You’re Peggy’s … oh.”

“Oh?”

“Agent Romanov tried to set us up.”

“I’m sure Grandma wouldn’t mind , if, er …” It was Sharon’s turn to blush as she looked up sidelong at Steve’s expression. He wasn’t sure what she’d found there, but the corner of her mouth quirked once and she nodded, dropping his hand. “Of course.”

“It’s okay, I’m 95 years old and I’m still a gentleman. My intentions are purely … purely platonic,” he added with a sigh.

“But you wanted more.”

“Hell, yeah,” he swore, then blushed and muttered an apology. “I wanted a life, dates, kisses, long engagement, big wedding, kids, and growing old together. Your grandfather got all that, and I don’t begrudge him. But that was the life _I_ wanted.” He looked back at Peggy sleeping peacefully in her bed and tilted his head, a wistful smile passing quickly over his lips. “Still do,” he added softly. He took a moment to drink her in, watching her sleep, his expression a mixture of sadness and longing.

“You could still have that,” she told him softly as she slipped across the room to the other side of the bed, quietly pulling over another chair so she could take Peggy’s other hand in hers. Steve felt a flash of annoyance that his special goodbye was well and truly interrupted, over, but Sharon’s face was smiling gently, kindly, in the flickering artificial candlelight. She looked at him expectantly, waiting.

“Not with my best girl,” he answered at last, lifting Peggy’s hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles gently, reverently. She didn’t stir this time, didn’t mutter in her sleep. Something cold and hard settled in his chest. Time was slipping away for Peggy Carter. Soon he’d be truly alone again. “Missed my chance. I was too late to the dance. 70 years too late,” he added, nearly under his breath.

Sharon glanced at her grandmother and nodded, frowning. “Looks like a lot of us did – miss our chance, I mean. And we were too late. After everything you and our grandparents did to destroy Hydra, to find out that it was growing right there where we lived, people we called friends …” She shook her head regretfully. “I’m glad Grandma doesn’t remember anything. It would kill her to know that everything she worked so hard to build has gone so spectacularly to shit.”

Steve frowned, tilting his head to one side. “We?”

“We, yeah,” she agreed, shrugging with a smile. “They call us ‘legacies.’ The grandchildren of the Howling Commandos.”

“Grandchildren,” Steve breathed. “All in SHIELD?” An idea struck him, insane, maybe reckless, but quite possibly perfect.

“A lot of us. Some are in other branches of intelligence or military, but every one of us went into some form of public service. Now, any of us in SHIELD are job-hunting. I just got picked up by the CIA – not sure that’s upward or downward mobility from SHIELD, but it’s a job.”

“And you know each other? You know who they are?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, laughing softly. “We all grew up together. I mean, we don’t go around advertising we’re legacies, especially _now_. But we all know each other. The Howling Commandos started having reunions and summer picnics and parties to gather everyone together. They started right after the war, after everyone got home. I think they needed each other, because no one else could understand what they’d seen, what they’d done and been through in the war. Grandma made sure your friend’s family was invited, all his sisters. Then it kept expanding as kids were born, kids got married, kids had more kids. There’s a reunion every summer with the kids and grandkids, well over a hundred people now. But a lot of us, my generation, get together informally here in DC when we can. Other than Grandma, there’s no one else left from the original team.”

Steve felt suddenly leaden. For a moment, he’d hoped that the files were wrong and maybe someone else was still out there, someone who remembered, who’d lived through the days as he had. Who might have been able to help him give this century context. For a moment, he hadn’t been alone, and now he was again. But that idea … that idea he had burned bright in his imagination. But first, he had to ask, “The Barneses were part of these picnics?” She nodded. “And part of the legacies?” She nodded again, tilting her head to the side and smiling quizzically at him.

“Can you reach them? I mean, do you have phone numbers, um e-thing, e-mail –“

She chuckled, leaning back in her chair. “Sure. And they’re all on my Twitterfeed. Tumblr, too.”

“You have a Twitterfeed?”

“Sure, don’t you?”

“Um … not that I know of.”

“You don’t know what a Twitterfeed is, do you, Captain?

He started to nod, then shook his head. “No. Is it something I should add to my list?” he asked, reaching for his notepad in his back pocket.

Sharon thought for a moment, biting her lower lip, then shook her head, smirking. “No, I think you can do without that. Tumblr, too. Not sure Facebook would be any use to you, either. So, what do you want me to do?” 

He told Sharon what was buzzing in his brain, and was pleased that she picked up his enthusiasm and shared it. And that the legacies would share with them both. It buoyed his spirits a little. 

He snagged his iPhone and handed her the remote that controlled the candles. He paused to run his index finger down the side of Peggy’s face again, cupping her chin gently in his hand, and kissed her wistfully on the forehead. “G’night Peggy,” he said softly, and whispered, “Love you.” Then he straightened and nodded to Sharon. Quietly, he slipped out and left her to visit with her grandmother, with his Peggy, still bathed in the flickering light of the artificial candles, still smiling gently in her slumber, remembering a dance and a life that should have been. 

And when he heard her say softly, “I like your young man, Grandma. He’s a keeper,” he grinned into the sudden glare of the antiseptic nursing room hallway. He was still grinning when he passed the nurse’s station and nodded a thank you to the head nurse who’d abetted his special goodbye to Peggy Carter.

_Please don't try so hard to say good-bye_  
_I don't mind spendin' everyday, out on your corner in the pourin' rain_  
_Please don't try so hard to say good-bye_  


**Author's Note:**

> Songwriters: LEVINE, ADAM / CARMICHAEL, JESSE ROYAL / DUSICK, RYAN MICHAEL / VALENTINE, JAMES B. / MADDEN, MICHAEL ALLEN. Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group.


End file.
